(highlighting the influence of environment on human health)

Month: January 2011

Mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, including three in southwestern Pennsylvania that are among the top 10 emitters in the nation, pose a serious threat to public health and the environment, according to a new report by PennEnvironment. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pennsylvania. Read more by clicking on the link above.

This is an important observation made by the Finnish health authorities: “For the past three weeks, Germany has been in turmoil over dioxin-contaminated eggs and pork. But the toxic content of Baltic Sea fish sold to Finnish consumers far exceeds those of the much-talked-about German products. And dioxins are not the only harmful contaminants collecting in the bodies of the Finns.”

Recent study on rodents showed that co-exposure to mercury and trichloroethylene (an environmental pollutant) increases immunotoxicity of the trichloroethylene.
TEC is an environmental pollutant. The study showed that chronic exposure (of about 32 weeks) to occupationally relevant concentrations of the environmental pollutant trichloroethylene (TCE) induces autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) in autoimmune-prone mice.
In real-life, individuals are never exposed to only one chemical but a mixture of them and very little is known about the effects of chemical mixtures on the immune system.

Just came across this: “West Africa’s toxic problem: Researchers cruising off the western coast of Africa have confirmed the presence of mysteriously high levels of airborne toxic PCBs. The production and use of these chemicals is now largely banned. The levels detected off the West African coast are a surprise since PCBs were not sold or used there, according to global inventories of PCBs.”
There is need for governments of countries off the coast of west Africa to do something about it before it gets out of hand.

Mercury cancels brain benefits of fish oil, study confirms: Prenatal mercury exposure from a mother’s fish-rich diet can reduce the beneficial effects fish oil has on brain development, report an international group of researchers. The babies exposed in the womb to higher methyl mercury levels scored lower on skills tests as infants and toddlers than those exposed to lower levels of the pollutant. Of five nutrients tested, only the benefits of the fish oil DHA were affected by the mercury. DHA is one type of healthy oil found in fish. Careful selection of which fish to eat during pregnancy is recommended following this recent analysis.

“Tuna and swordfish collected from some California grocery stores and sushi restaurants contained mercury levels as much as three times the threshold that authorizes federal food regulators to pull seafood from shelves, according to a study by an environmental health group.”
San Francisco Chronicle, California.http://bit.ly/fu8Oxi

I came across this interesting piece in the wake of the German dioxin crisis: “The European Commission has given its strongest signal yet that legislation tightening up the monitoring of dioxins in the food and feed chain will follow in the wake of the German crisis.”
Readers may wish to refer back to some of my earlier postings on PCBs and dioxins which I made couple of days before the issue of dioxin contamination of German poultry products hit the media outlets.